Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Genitives' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Genitives'

Re: which vs of which

Cool Breeze — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:33:33 GMT

Hi N2G

I'll butt in if I may. 1. He'd only left her a note on the bedside table of which she had not understood the content. There is a noun in the relative clause and that explains of in this case. I would reword the sentence: He'd only left her a note the content of which she had not understood on the bedside table. Since which has no possessive form, the of-genitive must be used unless we say: whose content.

New2grammar
Does it mean everytime two sentences are combined, an additional preposition will appear? If not, we're back to square one.Wrong conclusion.

This morning, I was awakened by a little girl knocking at the door ~~[of]~~ whom I'd never seen in my life. She told me she was my daughter while my wife was standing next to me. No need for a possessive form in this relative clause.

A dog came running toward me with a toy in its mouth, ~~[of]~~ which it had my name on it. Bad sentence, wrong comma usage. Better: A dog came running toward me. It had a toy with my name on it in its mouth.

If [of] required?

Re: Differences between English and your native language

Cool Breeze — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:07:13 GMT

There are fewer prepositions in Finnish than in English. Quite often, it is possible to place a preposition before or after the word it modifies. If the preposition is after the noun, it is called a postposition. After all, it is after the word it modifies. (Latin post = after) The noun is in the genitive in these cases:

KÃ¤velin yli kadun. / KÃ¤velin kadun yli. (= I walked across the street.)

Re: About the meaning of "where"

Velimir — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:56:07 GMT

Hello again,

Unfortunately,I've put one part in my previous post wrongly.Sorry for that.It would be correct to use the preposition "toward" in the following part:

"But,if the verb indicates motion,or in plain english,if you are :going toward, flying toward, traveling toward.."

What I've stated after that would be true now,i.e the following noun will be in the dative case.But,if the stress is on the final destination of flying,traveling,going..then the following noun will be in the accusative case,necessarily preceded with the preposition "to".(the preposition "to" perfectly match serbian "za",as attendant to the verbs of motion).
Although the case of a noun is influenced by the verb,modifying adjective(and its case),number(and its case)and gender of that noun,the case of the noun is most heavily influenced by the preceding preposition,if it is present.If the noun is not preceded with a preposition then other factors will determine the case of the noun.The importance of the preposition is apparent in the following example:

I arrived in London. - the noun "London" is in the accusative case

I arrived from London. - the noun "London" is in the genitive case

I suppose that it would require serious contemplation to explain all aspects of the "case" in any language,and additional comparison with english would make it really painful.

Best regards

Re: several grammar questions (2)

Avangi — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:45:23 GMT

Hela wrote:

Dear teachers,

1) How would you qualify this time of genitive, please? Which "title" would you give it? Is it some sort of "human activities"? but I don't really like this.

love's spirit, science's influence, my life's aim, duty's call . wow! I remember genitive as a Latin case 60 years ago. What do you mean by "time"? Your examples are all possessive. Joe's dog= the dog of Joe. Love's spirit=the spirit of love.   What am I missing?

2) Which tenses would you use in the following sentences and why?

a) Weather conditions have improved/improved (?) during the the last few days. Present perfect means the action has been [recently] completed. Simple past would mean it happened at some time in the past. The use of "during" means it was a continuing process. "Last few days" means it continued up to the present, at which time it was completed.(Present Perfect)

- Is it possible to say "the weather conditions" or is it definitely wrong? yes

- can we say "during the last days" = without "few"? yes, but it sometimes means the last days of the universe.

b)There has been / was (?) a real fall (?) in that town's population over/during (?) the last decade.Same tense situation as example 2.  Something happened over an extended period which just ended. "Over" and "during" both work, in my humble opinion.

c)He ~~should~~ showed/assured ??? him that he doesn't have the time / time (?) to pick up the children from/at (?) school. I say both choices are acceptable in both your red group and your black group.

Woops! where did the colors go?

- Would you please tell me if the article here is obligatory and why? Why not? the time=the time required / time=any time   Both work.

- which preposition should be used? are both possible? ANSWERED

3) âDid you do both maths exercises? The first was easier than the second.â âThat's right, the first was the easier of the two.â

- Is the "M" of math capitalized ? + should we say "math" or "maths" (with âsâ = Br. Eng ; without Â« s Â» = Am. Eng ?) Math would be capitalized if you said, "I just signed up for Math." I doubt "maths" would be used in this context in either domain, but I could be wrong.

- Would you please tell me when one should use âbothâ and âthe twoâ? Is it wrong to say âdid you do the two maths exercises...â and âthe first was the easier of bothâ ? Both choices work in the first example but only "the two" works in the second.

4) My mother left on her holiday/vacation (correct?)/ went on holiday(~~s?)~~/vacation a few weeks ago.

5) I have to pick her up at/from (?) the airport on her return / when she arrives (correct?).I think these are all okay. "From" would be questioned by some.

Many thanks,   Man, I needa break!

Hela

several grammar questions (2)

Hela — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:26:22 GMT

Dear teachers,

1) How would you qualify this time of genitive, please? Which "title" would you give it? Is it some sort of "human activities"? but I don't really like this.

love's spirit, science's influence, my life's aim, duty's call .

2) Which tenses would you use in the following sentences and why?

a) Weather conditions have improved/improved (?) during the the last few days.

- Is it possible to say "the weather conditions" or is it definitely wrong?

- can we say "during the last days" = without "few"?

b)There has been / was (?) a real fall (?) in that town's population over/during (?) the last decade.

c)He should him that he doesn't have the time / time (?) to pick up the children from/at (?) school.

- Would you please tell me if the article here is obligatory and why?

- which preposition should be used? are both possible?

3) âDid you do both maths exercises? The first was easier than the second.â âThat's right, the first was the easier of the two.â

- Is the "M" of math capitalized ? + should we say "math" or "maths" (with âsâ = Br. Eng ; without Â« s Â» = Am. Eng ?)

- Would you please tell me when one should use âbothâ and âthe twoâ? Is it wrong to say âdid you do the two maths exercises...â and âthe first was the easier of bothâ ?

4) My mother left on her holiday/vacation (correct?)/ went on holiday(s?)/vacation a few weeks ago.

5) I have to pick her up at/from (?) the airport on her return / when she arrives (correct?).

Many thanks,

Hela

Re: He insisted on my/me singing a song.

Cool Breeze — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:31:40 GMT

Grammar Geek wrote:
Singing is a gerund, a noun, so it takes the possessive my.

This is rather peculiar, I think. I have encountered the same thing on these forums many times. Native speakers say: "A gerund is a noun." Do they teach it that way in American schools and universities? Grammatical terminology varies greatly from country to country but I have yet to meet a grammarian who says a noun can have an object:

I insisted on his speaking English.

Furthermore, all nouns can have an adjectival attribute; in other words, we can put an adjective before them:

He likes old books.
Merry old England fascinates me.
Little Mary wanted to go out.
Useful information was given to everybody.

So, if gerunds are full-fledged nouns, the following is correct:

Correct speaking English is easy.

Few consider it correct. A gerund is neither a noun nor a verb; it's a cross between them. It has some qualities characteristic of nouns and some that are characteristic of verbs. It resembles a verb in that it can take an object, for instance.

Therefore, "I insist on him speaking English" and "I insist on his speaking English" are equally grammatical. In the first sentence, him is used due to the influence of the preposition on, which is normal English grammar. In the second sentence his is used because speaking is a noun to an extent, even though it's not a complete noun. It has long been customary to consider possessive forms (my, his, our) of personal pronouns better than the object forms (me, him, us) as subjects of a gerund. It also used to be common to consider the basic or common form of other words better in this position:

I insist on John Smith speaking English. (Also: John Smith's)
I insist on everybody speaking English. (Rarely: everybody's)

In the past 30 or so years I have noticed a tendency in American magazines and newspapers to prefer the genitive even in cases where it sounds and looks ludicrous. I assume this can be ascribed to rising standards in education. Nevertheless, there has never been a grammatical justification to consider one of the alternatives better. The tendency to consider the possessive form the better seems to me to stem from grammatical ignorance rather than a good knowledge of it. There is no grammatical or historical justification for preferring either form.

Cheers
CB

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

Cool Breeze — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:51:01 GMT

CalifJim wrote:

Light from several lanterns filled the room with a soft glow.
Laughter of children was heard on the playground.

Hmm. Do these have to be The light ... and The laughter ... ?

I certainly don't want to criticize Steinbeck's English at all. I dealt with the of-genitive in my previous post and there isn't one in your first sentence, so I'll say nothing about it. Laughter of children is also different grammatically since laughter is an uncountable noun, unlike evening. I'm not saying this is always the decisive factor but in this case it seems to make the difference in the use of the article, at least to me. When laughter of children was heard, it means that some laughter was heard, not necessarily all of it, and consequently dropping the article is normal.

This is how I understand the difference and I don't mind at all if some people disagree with me.

CB

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

Cool Breeze — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:50:14 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
CB,

I hate to disagree, because your comments are always so very helpful and appropriate, and you are such a valuable resource on the forum.

Nevertheless, I don't think any poetic license whatever is involved here.

Thank you for your kind words, Jim. As English is not my mother tongue, I don't always succeed in choosing the best word for everything. Poetic licence may not be the right expression. What I meant is this basic grammatical fact: if the of-genitive is used, the usually precedes the noun before the of:

What's the name of this town?
I don't like the color of the floor.
This is the address of the man in question.

The is used in the above examples because "this town" has only one name, "the floor" has only one color and "the man in question" has only one address. Or that's what the sentences imply, anyway. Because "a hot day" has only one evening, English grammatical rules would require:

The evening of a hot day...

Yet Steinbeck omitted the article. To call that "poetic" may not be a good idea after all. I just couldn't think of a better word when I wrote my previous post. I meant that grammatical rules required an article but Steinbeck preferred not to have one, in other words, he violated a grammatical rule, which is fairly common in poems.

As you and all native speakers of English know, the is not used in similar of-structures when the noun before the of refers to one of many:

He was a representative of Portugal in the Sydney Olympics.

This time there were many other representatives, that's why a is used. But:

She was the representative of Portugal in the beauty contest. (= the only representative)

An evening of a hot day appears inconceivable to me because a day doesn't have many evenings. Therefore, the really should be used, but Steinbeck thought differently for reasons known only to him.

Cheers
CB

Re: Prepositions

Cool Breeze — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:27:47 GMT

Hi Kiitixay

The preposition is in or at in the basic expressions only:
He came in the morning / in the afternoon / in the evening.
You can see the stars at night.
Nothing exceptional happened at noon.
A plural is possible as well: It often rains in the mornings.

When you deviate from the basic expressions, the preposition is on:
I don't like to go out on cold nights. (adj.)
It happened on a foggy afternoon. (adj.)
He arrived on the morning of 7th June. (of-genitive)
It rained on Monday afternoon. (day of the week mentioned)
I don't want to go out on winter / December mornings. (season or month mentioned)
And so on.

No preposition is used with some words:
every morning. this afternoon

Cheers
CB

Re: At any moment in time?

Ruslana — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:51:25 GMT

Yes, but I wonder why of is wrong. As I know, this preposition may be used between two nouns to make the genitive. Moment is a noun, and so is time.

Maybe this misunderstanding comes from Russian because the verbatim translation of the phrase would be in the genitive (Moment of what? Moment of time). It's a pity it's not acceptable in English. It would make things easier.